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About Me

When not nosing, tasting, drinking and reading about malt whisky, I own one of Israel's premiere boutique coaching practices, specializing in small businesses and executive teams.
Trained in the law, I was an international law attorney and took part in Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, as well as representing my country at the UN for parts of the negotiations on the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Later I was appointed to the military bench.
My favorite thing, other than whisky, is teaching.
You can contact me through the social media buttons above or by email: michael(at)maltandoak.com, replacing the (at) with an @.

Statement of Integrity and Guidelines

Malt and Oak is an independent whisky blog, offering my own views, opinions and news from the world of malt whisky.
These are my guidelines:

1. All whisky reviews published are of whiskies I have personally tasted and noted. Guest bloggers only write about their own personal tastings.

2. With the exception of official whisky samples, I accept no consideration whatsoever from any distillery, bottler, distributor, drink company or store for my opinions.

3. I maintain strict impartiality and objectivity in tasting all whiskies, not least when tasting official samples. Any review of official whisky samples sent to me will be so noted in the post.

4. I will accept invitations to tastings, events and official visits, and full disclosure will be made on any tasting notes and articles resulting from these events or visits.

5. Any sample received over 30 ml in volume is shared with fellow whisky bloggers. In any event, no sample larger than 100 ml will be accepted.

6. No advertisements promoting specific brands will be accepted.

7. I will answer any inquiry by my readers as quickly and as fully as possible.

8. Should I give a link purchase the reviewed whisky, it will be given free of any commercial interest. The link given will always point to cheapest selling price I found on the web. No commission is paid, nor any other consideration given, for such link.

9. As of July 2017, I serve as Douglas Laing’s Israel brand ambassasdor. As such, I will obviously not be posting reviews of Douglas Laing products.

Balblair 17 (46%)

By Michael Bendavid | May 22, 2019

Balblair 17 (46%)

Balblair revamped also the duty free range, offering the 12, 15 and the future 25 years old in travel retail, but has chosen to offer the Balblair 17 instead of the 18 year old. Why keep 75% of your core range on travel retail shelves just to replace a single expression? This is the third time…

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Balblair’s New Core Range: Balblair 12 (46%), Balblair 15 (46%), Balblair 18 (46%)

By Michael Bendavid | May 16, 2019

Balblair’s New Core Range: Balblair 12 (46%), Balblair 15 (46%), Balblair 18 (46%)

So Balblair went ahead and did it. They have actually taken the one thing that made them totally special and chucked it out the window. No longer specific vintages with an ever changing core range, rather a regular and quite mundane aged range, with a Balblair 12, 15, 18 and 25, with a 17 year…

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